Rollins Joins Team Trump
Ed Rollins, one of the longest-serving Republican presidential campaign strategists, is joining a pro-Donald Trump super PAC, Politico reports.
“In an interview, Rollins — who managed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign and played leading roles for Jack Kemp, Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann — said that he would serve as a top strategist for Great America PAC, an outside group that’s supporting Trump.”
Ex-McCain Aide Will Back Clinton Over Trump
Mark Salter, a former top aide to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), says he will support Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in November as both candidates appear close to locking down their parties’ nominations, MSNBC reports.
Said Salter: “Basically, I think she’s the more conservative choice and the least reckless one. Trump’s policy views are like some drunk’s rant. If he tried to do anything like he says he will, we’d have no allies, a lot more enemies, and more of them with nukes. Finally, he’s unfit for the office, too, temperamentally and morally, a narcissistic bigot.”
Cruz Really Doesn’t Like This Question
Sen. Ted Cruz still won’t say if he’ll support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
Will Clinton Just Repeat the Obama Presidency?
American Prospect: “Hillary Clinton would come into office without ambitions for the kind of big, transformative bills Obama passed. Nevertheless, her administration could follow exactly the same pattern: two years in which to pass legislation, followed by a Republican victory that robs her of any hope of making new laws with Congress’s help. And that’s if she’s lucky.”
“The best-case scenario for Clinton is that she gets her Democratic Congress in those first two years—with extremely small margins, particularly in the House. And then what happens in 2018? Presidents almost always lose ground in Congress in off-year elections, and given the more Republican-friendly cast of the off-year electorate (older and more white, for starters), Republicans would be highly likely to take back the House. Even if Democrats take the Senate this year, it will be very hard for them to hold on to it.”
“Republicans may despise Hillary Clinton even more than they do Obama. So whatever she can accomplish will be only over their most fevered and absolute opposition. Getting anything through Congress won’t be easy—and she’ll have precious little time to do it.”
Too Little, Too Late for Cruz
Byron York: “Cruz’s outburst came too late to have much of an effect on Indiana voters, who were already going to the polls as he spoke. But his words are sure to set off a debate on why Cruz did not reveal his feelings earlier. Why wait until his back was against the wall?”
“Obviously Cruz did not love Trump or think he was terrific back in December. Cruz was acting strategically, in what he thought was his political self interest. Now, whatever happens in Indiana, the question for Cruz will be: Why didn’t you say what you felt all along?”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Well, I’ve been married to him for 15 years, and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s a lot of garbage out there.”
– Heidi Cruz, quoted by Yahoo News, denying that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of this mouth.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz, quoted by ABC News.
Survey Suggests Democrats Headed for a Landslide
A new Rand survey finds 53% of voters surveyed say they will vote for a Democrat for president this fall while 37.9% will vote for a Republican.
Just four months ago, a similar survey found 46.7% were planning to vote for a Democrat while 43.1% would vote for a Republican.
Trump Crushing Cruz In California
A new SurveyUSA poll in California shows Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 54%, followed by Ted Cruz at 20% and John Kasich at 16%.
Trump Says Cruz’s Father Helped JFK Assasin
Donald Trump “alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963,” Politico reports
A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was “another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage.”
The GOP Race In One Graph
Gallup: “The remarkable aspect of this trend line is the degree to which since mid-April Trump’s net favorable rating has moved steadily upward just as Cruz’s net favorable rating has moved steadily downward.”
Trump Is Winning By Winning
Rick Klein: “In Indiana, Ted Cruz got the stakes he wanted, the matchup he craved, the air cover he needed, the teammate he chose, and even – thanks to an accommodating Donald Trump supporter on Monday – the debate he practically begged for. If he loses Indiana, though, he won’t have been giving the voters what they wanted. That, at its most fundamental level, is what makes the Trump train roll on: voters are voting for him, not against the other candidates, unless you define his rivals broadly as the same establishment Trump presents himself as a threat to. Trump is winning by winning.”
“The question soon enough for Cruz is whether he see himself as winning by losing. If his goal is to elect a Republican president in 2016, the math makes that answer easy enough, and the Republican Party coalesces behind its all-but-certain nominee. If Cruz’s goal is to elect a particular Republican president in 2020 or beyond, the clear strategy is to stick around to the end. But he won’t get another Indiana – a moment where he can plausibly claim that a state’s voting could determine the results.”
Politico: How Cruz got Indiana wrong
More Evidence the Cruz-Kasich Deal Backfired
First Read: “The alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich to divvy up primary states probably made sense on paper; after all, it theoretically could have given Cruz a clear shot in Indiana. The problem? It backfired, big time. Our new NBC News| SurveyMonkey poll shows that a big majority – 70% — of Republicans are either uncomfortable (35%) or angry (35%) about the deal.”
“What’s more, the vast majority of GOP voters are pretty cynical when it comes to Cruz’s move to pick Carly Fiorina as his running mate: 83% of GOPers said the pick was made to revitalize Cruz’s campaign, not because Fiorina was the best person for the job. Another poll out this morning from Morning Consult also shows that Fiorina hasn’t helped Cruz much overall. A quarter of Republican voters said the decision made them more likely to vote for Cruz, while about the same share – 24% — said they were actually less likely to vote for him as a result.”
Quote of the Day
“He always counterattacks ferociously. He also finds a way to define his opponent in a way that shrinks and limits them. These aren’t just barroom brawl tactics. They are to define semantically his opponents in ways they can’t get out of, Hillary being the next great experiment.”
— Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, quoted by the Washington Post, on Donald Trump.
Cruz’s Image Plummets Among Republicans
Gallup: “Republicans’ views of Cruz are now the worst in Gallup’s history of tracking the Texas senator. His image among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents is at 39% favorable and 45% unfavorable… for a net favorable score of -6. The last few days have marked the first time we have seen Cruz’s image underwater since we began daily tracking in July.”
“In sharp contrast to the recent trajectory of Cruz’s image, we find Trump’s image on an upswing in recent days… Trump had a 59% favorable and 35% unfavorable image among Republicans, for a +24 net favorable.”
Brown Says He’s Not Being Vetted
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told National Journal he’s not being vetted as a potential running mate by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Trump Not Sure He’d Consider Cruz for Supreme Court
Donald Trump told the Daily Mail he was sure he would consider Ted Cruz as a potential Supreme Court nominee.
Said Trump: “I don’t know, I’d have to think about it.”
He added: “There’s a whole question of uniting and there’s a whole question as to temperament. He’s certainly a smart guy, but there’s also a temperament issue. He’s got a tough temperament for what we’re talking about. You have to be a very, very smart, rational person, in my opinion, to be a justice of any kind.”
Trump told the Washington Post that he plans to announce more than a dozen judges from which he’d pick to fill Supreme Court vacancies.